He laid out the factual details of Mitt Romney’s “47%” blunder, and I hoped he was going to explain why Romney’s statements were unfair, incorrect, or ill advised.Let’s start there, before getting to Schneider.Romney said, “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement.”

Romney simultaneously implies that ALL Democratic voters are poor, dependent and shiftless AND that NONE of the 47% non-taxpaying, so-called dependent people vote Republican.Neither of these propositions are true.There are plenty of wealthy, or middle class voters who vote Democratic; a substantial percentage of those not paying taxes are elderly folks who certainly paid taxes most of their lives but are now on fixed income; and a substantial percentage of Romney’s support comes from poor, red-state inhabitants making less than $24,000 a year who still vote Republican.

But Christian Schneider never got to the kind of mea-culpas hinted at by the column’s title.Instead, he noted that Romney’s gaffe was reminiscent of Obama’s 2008 “cling to guns and religion” comment in Pennsylvania.This is some sort of distractionary “two-wrongs may not make a right, but you’re just as guilty, judge not, lest ye be judged” kind of argument. Schneider does it again in his final paragraph, accusing Obama of “fomenting class warfare” but acknowledging Romney’s doing the same thing in reverse.Can’t a conservative criticize a Republican without having to first tell us all how bad the Democrat is?

Finally, all wistful hope was lost when Schneider began “Eastwooding.”He wrote, “(Oddly enough, Obama was talking about rural Democrats; his thoughts on rural Republicans might make the author of “50 Shades of Grey” blush.)”I thought when Clint Eastwood talked to an empty chair at the recent Republican Convention, implying the President of the United States dropped the F-bomb, that we would have seen the last attempt by a Republican to put words in the President’s mouth.Mr. Christian… Do you actually have ANY evidence of what the President would say about rural Republicans, or do you just want to suggest the President is a filthy mouthed sado-masochist, so therefore we should let Romney’s upper-crust, ill advised, factually incoherent bad-mouthing of Democrats slide?

I thought momentarily that Christian Schneider (no relation) was going to do something I have rarely seen, in his opinion piece of Wednesday, September 19, 2012 “Insulting Voters Not Best Strategy.”I thought the conservative Schneider was going to admit that one of his own made a mistake.

He laid out the factual details of Mitt Romney’s “47%” blunder, and I hoped he was going to explain why Romney’s statements were unfair, incorrect, or ill advised.Let’s start there, before getting to Schneider.Romney said,

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement.”

Romney simultaneously implies that ALL Democratic voters are poor, dependent and shiftless AND that NONE of the 47% non-taxpaying, so-called dependent people vote Republican.Neither of these propositions are true.There are plenty of wealthy, or middle class voters who vote Democratic; a substantial percentage of those not paying taxes are elderly folks who certainly paid taxes most of their lives but are now on fixed income; and a substantial percentage of Romney’s support comes from poor, red-state inhabitants making less than $24,000 a year who still vote Republican. Not all republican supporters are millionaires.

But Schneider never got to the kind of mea-culpas hinted at by the column’s title.Instead, he noted that Romney’s gaffe was reminiscent of Obama’s 2008 “cling to guns and religion” comment in Pennsylvania.This is some sort of distractionary, “two-wrongs may not make a right, but you’re just as guilty; judge not, lest ye be judged” kind of argument. Schneider does it again in his final paragraph, accusing Obama of “fomenting class warfare” but acknowledging Romney’s doing the same thing in reverse.Can’t a conservative criticize a Republican without having to first tell us all how bad the Democrat is?

Finally, all wistful hope was lost when Schneider began “Eastwooding.”He wrote, “(Oddly enough, Obama was talking about rural Democrats; his thoughts on rural Republicans might make the author of “50 Shades of Grey” blush.)”I thought when Clint Eastwood talked to an empty chair at the recent Republican Convention, implying the President of the United States dropped the F-bomb, that we would have seen the last attempt by a Republican to put words in the President’s mouth.Mr. Christian… Do you actually have ANY evidence of what the President would say about rural Republicans, or do you just want to suggest the President is a filthy mouthed sado-masochist, so therefore we should let Romney’s upper-crust, ill advised, factually incoherent bad-mouthing of Democrats slide?